The most recent case of "there's no release planned so the fans shall cry out and make it so" is John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams' latest score for Dreamworks, Shrek. While the public conciously noticed the most obvious aural presentation of the film (the pop and rock songs), film score fans were wading through the mess to reach the orchestral contribution. Most people in my acquaintance who know little to nothing of film music walked away from the movie humming Princess Fiona's theme, which I'm happy to report is one of the best of 2001. It's not *the* best theme, but it is probably the most hummable.

When I first saw the film, I was rather dissapointed by the score. It wasn't because I didn't like it, but because of it's fragmentation, noticeable even off of album. I felt that it was more of a "good theme to string events together" piece, but the CD release which we now have actually makes me appreciate the music more now. While the track are short and somewhat choppy, they are an excellent presentation of the various themes, most of which I didn't even notice while seeing the flick. There is a great one that only appears at the very end, but my favorite of them, apart from Fiona's which I already mentioned, is the dragon theme heard most prominently in tracks 14 and 25. As a matter of fact, my favorite track (and I'm not alone on this one) is "Escape from the Dragon", which sounds like a piece of David Arnold's trademark James Bond music.

There are problems with a few of the tracks when put on album. The most obvious is the "Singing Princess" piece, in which Fiona performs a duet with a bird, resulting in the bird's rather humorous end. Unfortunately, without seeing the film at the same time, the tracks feels kind of pointless. Another problem is the two songs, "Welcome to Duloc" and "Merry Men". Both *kind of* work in the film, but on album, they are incredibly annoying, and distrupting, which makes it even stranger that these are the only tracks mentioned on the sticker on the CD's plastic wrapping.

The only qualm I have with the composition of the music itself is the overuse of acoustic guitar. I realize that this is completely a matter of taste, but I have to tell you that guitar is far from my favorite instrument.

Other than that, I think that this album should sell well. The movie was a huge success and we are lucky that the clammor of fans made Robert Townson decide to release this. If you are one of those people who cried out for the CD, you probably already have this. Anyone who doesn't know whether or not they should look into Shrek had better watch the movie first. If you walk away humming Fiona's theme, *pick* it up. If not, *pass* it up.

Shrek is Copyright 2001 Varese Sarabande. CD produced by Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell. Executive producer: Robert Townson. This review is written by and is the property of Isaac Engelhorn and does not reflect the opinions of Tripod.